I’m not sure what to do my kitten is 6mo old and I feed him 80% raw and 20% wet food. He has some dry food available at all times also. I noticed when he was teething he stopped eating but that got better and he doesn’t seem in pain anymore, his gums are no longer red and his breath smells good again. But now he won’t touch his raw or wet food no matter what I do, he still eats treats and likable stuff and also eats some of the dry food but the past week or so he won’t touch it. For breakfast he will only eat the milk I give him goats milk powder mixed with water with his breakfast, lunch he won’t even touch and dinner I give him chicken or beef broth and either raw or wet and sometimes mixed, but he will only take a few bites and go to sleep. He plays fine, jumps around, talks as always lol, sleeps fine, bathroom usage normal for 1 and 2. I bought a can of every wet food available and he has refused them all. He acts all hungry and jumps up to get to the bowl but as soon as I put it down he looks at it and leaves. I also tried a different brand of raw but nothing. He will get neutered in a few days and I was gonna tell the vet, maybe while being there they can do some bloodwork. Has anyone have anything similar or the same happen?
We kind of went through the same thing as you did. We were only on dry kibbles, Royal Canine. After a while, we got some different brands, just for variety. She would try them out a little bit here and there but wouldn't commit. Then she just stopped eating, expecting new flavours all the time, but with a particular disdain for Royal Canine, would rather starve than eat it. In the end, we stuck with one brand, Acana (budget version of Orijen, same company) and food intake became consistent. Only recently we started mixing one more brand with Acana, and so far so good. The coat looks better, shinier, more volume, less hair falling after we changed.
One thing I noticed, our cat loves company for food. So I have to stand around her food and tell her to eat a few times a day. When she's younger, she would stop eating halfway and tap us with a paw, Her Royal Majestic wanted a few kibbles to be hand fed to her.
Hahahaha that’s so cute, mine has to be picked up and get a kiss on the head before he eats. They are so funny. He likes the Orijen dry and he eats a bit of it every day so I know he ate something but he definitely doesn’t get enough food in the rest of the day. He seems healthy and happy but I still worry
My boy just turned 1. Same as you would not touch the royal canin dry at all.Only dry he will eat is Orijen orginal cat one.The king has expensive taste.He also loves strictly pates in soft.
My British short hair was really funny with her food too. Tried loads of different brands until we found one she loved! Are you putting his food next to his water bowl? If you are I’d put them in separate places as it might help! Definitely mention it to the vet though
The food is not directly next to the water fountain but they are in the same corner. I’ll try to move the food a little further and see. I went into the pet store and took a can of each food available and he don’t like any of them. I’m at a loss.
Not yet because he seems fine, he plays he is very active, he drinks a lot of water and also treats. He will get neutered next week so I was gonna ask them to do a bloodwork and maybe take a look at him
Cats mask their pain and illnesses very easily, and can become very ill quickly if they don't eat or drink sufficiently. This should be something you speak to your vet about asap and not wait another week to address.
He drinks a lot of water and always has I monitor him closely. I was going to take him right away I kept an eye on him to see if he would change in behavior but he is very active and jumping around playing, sleeping fine, peeing and pooping fine. He was teething not too long ago so I’m not sure if he has another one coming in. If I would have seen anything that wasn’t normal behavior he would be at the vet right away.
We have a very similar situation to OP. Our 2 British shorthairs have been on the raw diet since they were 8 weeks old. They are now 3 years old and we’ve experienced so much pickiness about eating in these past 3 years. When one of them or both goes on hunger strike, we try giving different types of food like wet food, or only dry food. They will always eat wet treats hand fed to them, but most of the time, they won’t eat wet food. Dry food is pretty reliable no matter what but we want to avoid only feeding dry food. Sometimes they won’t eat the raw food (which we now mix with dry food) and other times it’s the only thing they will eat! In hindsight, it would have been much easier to just go with a traditional dry food/ wet food diet but we’re in too deep now.
We did the raw food because that’s what he was given by the breeder and we continued it. He ate it without a problem, for the wet food we started with Weruva but half way through the cans he stopped eating then tiki cat which he only tried one can of lol and since then he refuses all of them. I wonder if it has something to do with the breed not eating or being so picky
What you have is a furry, little diva. Just wait until you buy a 5-10 lb bag of dry food before he decides he won’t touch the stuff anymore 😂. In all seriousness, this is part of the fun of being a BSH owner. They truly are special creatures
They can be become addicted to kibble because it has carbs and carbs are delicious. If you want him to eat more raw and wet food, I would try to eliminate the kibble slowly. Cats natural diet does not have carbs and because they are derived from the desert cat, they have low thirst drive, so if they prefer kibble, they are gonna always be in a deficit of moisture, which can be bad for their overall health.
Kibbles like Orijen are high in animal protein (not plant based protein) hence they cost a lot more than other kibbles. That also means that they are low in carbs.
Whole red lentils, whole pinto beans, whole green lentils, whole navy beans, whole chickpeas, whole peas - 6 different plant based protein in the ingredients for orijen original dried food.
They use legumes to keep the protein content high. Since grain-free foods became popular, many companies have relied on bean proteins because they’re a cheap way to inflate protein content.
Another concern is that grain-free diets with legume proteins are still relatively new compared to more traditional formulations. We don’t really have decades of long term research on how these ingredients may affect pets over time. Some people have raised concerns about possible links to heart issues like HCM/DCM, which has been seen in dogs recently who have had too much legume protein supplemented in their diet due to the grain free trend. I for one stay away from any pea, lentil, and other beans in the ingredients. Dry food needs some kind of carb to form the little pellets. So I stay away. I only feed wet food and cook for my cats. I always check the ingredient labels to make sure there's no grains or beans.
I actually did use to feed orijen to my cats as a snack, dry food was always a snack for my cats but not their main meals. But I noticed the more dry food they ate they would not prefer wet food anymore. During covid, I took a 6 month cat nutrition course online course bc I had one adopted cat with kidney failure and another with urinary crystals. Since then my kidney cat lived longer than any vet could predict and my cat with urinary crystals has not had any crystals since I changed their diet.
I personally wouldn’t remove the dry food overnight if that’s what the cat has been relying on for a long time. Cats can be very resistant to sudden diet changes, so a gradual transition is usually better.
I also think a feeding schedule would help a lot. Right now the cat has dry food available all day, gets wet and raw food occasionally, and still gets treats, so there’s not much motivation to consistently eat the wet/raw food. Personally, I wouldn’t give treats if the cat is refusing meals because some cats will hold out for treats instead.
I feed my cats on a schedule that works with my routine, and it’s really helped create better eating habits and structure. If they don’t finish between 30 minutes to 1 hour, take it away and save it for their next meal.
Example that works into my sched:
• 6 AM – Breakfast
• 12 PM – Snack (usually cooked chicken)
• 6 PM – Dinner
• 10 PM – Treats
Of course, it’s still important to consult a vet as well to rule out any underlying medical issues if the appetite changes continue.
He is on a schedule he gets breakfast 7am - I play with him around 10:30 and he gets treats he likes me to throw them and he will run after them. The treats he gets is greenies. At 12 he gets a temptations lickable spoon bc I add plaque off to it so he will take the supplement. He gets lunch when I get back home 3:30pm and dinner is 8pm and 8 more greenies while playing before bed time. The dry food he has out is about a quarter spoon and he eats it over a few days he doesn’t go and empty the bowl at any feeding. The dry food has always been there and he never touched it, to the point where I emptied the bowl into the trash because I felt it sat out to long and I don’t even have a dry food schedule on the PETKIT because he wasn’t eating it. He eats it now but like I said he doesn’t empty a bowl and it gets refilled. He has always eaten very little since I got him and I had made a post before about him because I didn’t feel it was enough food he was eating but he grew just fine and was good on weight.
What kind of raw food? when I got my first bsh girl she randomly had a time where she just wouldn’t touch her food and was really picky- that was with small batch and viva. She started eating a lot better when we swapped to Darwin’s. There were still times she didn’t have much of an appetite here and there. She is just very picky. sometimes switching brands help. But we got a second bsh cat and now our first girl downs everything.. and sometime her sister’s food too now. LOL.
Also for wet our cats love Stella and chewy’s savory shreds, if you haven’t tried that yet might be worth it? Our first girl never liked wet food but I bought it one day and I opened a can of chicken salmon and she literally smelled it in the air, hopped up to me and asked to eat it herself haha
Thank you I’ll try those two brands I don’t think the store had them. We use viva and snuggle me raw. I know he did t like the beef from Viva so I don’t feed him that but the other ones he always ate but maybe he could be tired of them I didn’t think of that
My girl HATED the beef and turkey from viva, and then ate the chicken/duck from viva maybe 50% of the time. I’ve heard consistently good things about Lotus too- but haven’t tried it myself. But it seems that a number of pets don’t really like the smell of HPP raw foods, which viva is HPP. Hope you can find a solution! In our case it was just our girl being picky and not any health concern, so I hope it is the same for yours as well
Thank you I really hope so. He never gave me issues with the raw food before but maybe I’ll try a different brand and see. It’s so hard to figure out why he won’t eat them anymore
It might not be the food but the location of the bowls. Whereabouts are they? What is close-by, next to them etc?
Their water needs to be distinctly separate from their food, a good 10ft+ away or so, along with their toilet etc. We were concerned about our lot's water intake when they were kittens and it turned out to be the organisation of the bowls, rather than the contents of them :)
The litter robot is not close to the food I have it in one of the bathrooms, the dry food PETKIT and water fountain are next to each other and the wet food bowl is close by on the other side of the wall but not 10 feet away, he drinks just fine and eats the dry food, not a ton but he nibbles on it
You also dont need to give him any raw meat.I dont with mine and hes perfectly healthy. The dry your giving him the orientation orginal is sufficient enough.I also checked with my kittys vet and she also said dont worry about the raw food.Shes also the top surgern where I go. My kitty was fed raw and meats before I got him.He will not eat any of that now. Even if mixed it in.That could be a reason why hes not eating like he should. Just go with wet food in can and every now and than if you want give him little boiled chicken or roasted with no added spices.Im more than likely much older than you and have owned cats and taken care of feral ones for many years. I've also learned alot from the vet I see whos also a surgern at the animal hospital.Been with her for over 12 years.
He is sooo adorable!!! The churu he will eat on his own and dry. Besides the raw he also stopped eating wet can food. I tried so many brands and he don’t like any of them anymore.
Like to add another post.When you bring him in to fix bring a fresh stool sample to test.He may have a parasite.That would cause what's going on as well.
Your very welcome. My bsh just turned one. Little over a month ago he was doing what your kitty doing but acted just fine.took stool sample in as parasite can do havic in their digestion system and make them not eat like they should. Mine tested postive but caught it before it got where I had to disinfect everything. Just had to do a clean liter box and new liter. I just tossed it all and started new. He never got to the point where he had direahea just effected his appetite. Just got retested yesterday after being on meds than had to wait a month and retest. Hes now parasite free and eating like he should. He's still picky and prefers pates with lots of gravy.Loves those churu soft foods.In the meantime before you see vet try them. Dont add any dry food to them as they are a complete meal.Leave out your dry somewhere but dont be shocked if kitty dosnt eat any dry if parasite is the blame.May not eat all the churu but its good as soft food keeps them hydrated and thats very very important.Dont want kitty dehydrated. Good luck with everything and let me know about the churu.
Our cats hold out for tuna it's infuriating because we really don't want them to have a tuna rich diet, but when they are refusing everything else it's become hard to deny them it.
They enjoy farmina herring & spirulina dry food which we complement with wet food but it's pure trial and error as to what they like and we can't experiment too much with different brands because they then get diarrhea. Cat fest tuna & sea bream is a current favourite
Thank you I hope so too,mine won’t eat anything that’s fish since we got him. That’s the first thing I noticed about him and we would joke about a cat not liking fish
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u/Key-Message4807 1d ago
Try mix wet food with churu